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house.’
    For days Hervé Joncour continued to lead a retired life; he was hardly seen in the town, and spent his time working on the plan for the park that sooner or later he would build. He filled sheets and sheets with strange designs that looked like machines. One evening Hélène asked him
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘It’s an aviary.’
    ‘An aviary?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And what is its purpose?’
    Hervé Joncour kept his eyes fixed on those drawings.
    ‘You fill it with birds, as many as you can, then one day, when something lovely happens to you, you open the doors and watch them fly away.’

40.
    A T the end of July Hervé Joncour left, with his wife, for Nice. They settled themselves in a small villa, on the sea. That was what Hélène had wanted, convinced that a serene and quiet retreat would soothe the melancholy humour that seemed to have possessed her husband. She had had the acuity, nonetheless, to pass it off as a personal whim, giving the man she loved the pleasure of indulging her.
    They spent five weeks of small-scale, unassailable happiness. On days when the heat was less intense, they rented a carriage and enjoyed discovering the towns hidden in the hills, where the sea seemed a background of coloured paper. From time to time, they went to the city for a concert or some society event. One evening they accepted the invitation of an Italian baron who was celebrating his sixtieth birthday with a grand dinner at the Hôtel Suisse. They were at dessert when Hervé Joncour happened to look over at Hélène. She was sitting on the other side of the table, beside a seductive Englishman who, curiously, displayed on the lapel of his evening suit a little wreath of small blue flowers. Hervé Joncour saw him lean over Hélène and whisper something in her ear. Hélène began to laugh, in a beautiful way, and, laughing, bent slightly towards the English gentleman so that she grazed his shoulder with her hair, in a gesture in which there was nothing embarrassing but only a disconcerting precision. Hervé Joncour lowered his gaze to his plate. He couldn’t help noticing that his own hand, clutching a silver teaspoon, was undeniably trembling.
    Later, in the smoking room, Hervé Joncour, staggering because he had drunk too much, approached a man who, sitting alone at the table, was looking straight ahead, with a vaguely doltish expression on his face. He leaned over towards him and said slowly
    ‘I must communicate to you something very important, monsieur . We are all revolting. We are all marvellous, and we are all revolting.’
    The man came from Dresden. He dealt in calves and didn’t understand much French. He burst into a noisy laugh, making a sign of agreement with his head, repeatedly: as if he would never stop.
    Hervé Joncour and his wife stayed on the Riviera until early September. They left the little villa with regret, since, within its walls, they had felt that to love each other was an easy fate.

41.
    B ALDABIOU arrived at the house of Hervé Joncour early in the morning. They sat under the portico.
    ‘As a park it’s not much.’
    ‘I haven’t started to build it yet, Baldabiou.’
    ‘Ah, I see.’
    Baldabiou never smoked in the morning. He took out his pipe, filled it, and lighted it.
    ‘I met this Pasteur. He’s a smart fellow. He showed me what he’s doing. He’s capable of distinguishing the sick eggs from the healthy ones. He doesn’t know how to cure them, of course. But he can isolate the healthy ones. And he says that probably thirty per cent of what we produce is healthy.’
    Pause.
    ‘Is there any more coffee?’
    Hervé Joncour poured some coffee.
    Pause.
    ‘Those two Italians, Ferreri and the other, the ones who went to China, last year … They came back with fifteen thousand ounces of eggs, good stuff, and they also bought from Bollet, it’s said the stock was high quality. In a month they leave again … They offered a good deal, their prices are honest, eleven francs an